{"id":12383,"date":"2019-06-29T15:51:19","date_gmt":"2019-06-29T19:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/?p=12383"},"modified":"2025-06-14T13:42:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T17:42:01","slug":"circadian-tortuga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/archives\/12383","title":{"rendered":"Circadian Tortuga"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe sage
\n     dwells in affairs of nonaction,
\n     carries out a doctrine without words.
\nHe lets the myriad of creatures rise up
\n     but does not instigate them;
\nHe acts
\n     but does not presume;
\nHe completes his work
\n     but does not dwell on it.
\nNow,
\n     Simply because he does not dwell on them,
\n          his accomplishments never leave him.\u201d
\n\u2014 Lao Tzu
\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are many outstanding collage artists who have a trademark \u201cstyle,\u201d and I can immediately identify a piece as theirs prior to confirmation. I have no idea if people familiar with contemporary collage recognize a work as mine before they see a signature or attribution. To have cultivated a personal \u201cvoice\u201d as an artist, no matter what the genre, and to have dug deeply into a single claim rich with ore is a good thing, and I admire those who have done it. I suspect that the description doesn\u2019t apply to me \u2014 although I honestly don\u2019t know \u2014 and I\u2019d leave a more objective evaluation to others. I could accept that I\u2019m wandering a hundred-year-old frontier, sometimes venturing into lawless terrain, and, as often as not, frequenting the established settlements, helping myself to the comforts of civilization. Or perhaps I just took a job in the hills at a collage strip mine.<\/p>\n

Do I ruminate on such things only because I\u2019m blogging instead of working in the studio? It brings to mind Robert Hughes, who described the history of art as being \u201clike the scramble for Africa.\u201d He wrote that \u201ca few pioneers stumble on unexploited territory and stake it out, often forgetting to register their claims. Then the dealers arrive, and the collectors, carving up the area, reducing it to mining ground, a tangle of jumped claims and abandoned shafts, patrolled by trigger-happy art historians.\u201d<\/p>\n

I get more new ideas than I can possibly explore. Sometimes, when I fill a page with them, it occurs to me that the time would be better spent actually working instead of creating thumbnail notes for addition to my \u201cto-do\u201d list. The daily habit of confronting a challenging workload is probably a better source of what to do next than an isolated mental concept. To work and not dwell on it, to rest and then resume work, is undoubtedly the more rewarding road to deeper accomplishment. One can tell the difference between an artistic \u201clook\u201d that was intellectually contrived and one that grew organically from a work ethic. It is much like the process of collage itself. Spontaneous visual juxtapositions that could not possibly have been preconceived are generally more interesting and memorable than those that were \u201cthought up\u201d and then executed.
\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Circadian Tortuga<\/em><\/strong>
\ncollage on canvas by J A Dixon
\n22 x 16 inches
\non consignment
\n 
\nPurchase this artwork.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe sage      dwells in affairs of nonaction,      carries out a doctrine without words. He lets the myriad of creatures rise up      but does not instigate them; He acts      but does not presume; He completes his work      but does not dwell on it. Now,     […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,18,35,132],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12383"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19777,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12383\/revisions\/19777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}